Why did it take so long for the U.S. to pick its national anthem?

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Frames on universe Mm that's a very high note.

Thank you for noticing. Gleaming.

And that's a very low note.

Well, I gotta really make sure my singing range is stretched.

To its full.

Full potential. I'm singing the United States national anthem, aka the Star Spangled Banner, at my pet elephant Hermes kickball game next week.

That's so exciting.

Yeah, it is. But singing the song is a workout. There's a huge range of notes from high ones to low ones. And it has a pretty complicated melody. Singing the song is like vocal gymnastics.

Have you considered taking lessons from the Star Spangled Banner itself?

Excuse me what?

Yeah, there's a big anthem convention that happens every year. You can meet famous anthems and get trained by them.

get trained by an actual song? Like are there weights? Laps, rowing machines?

No, even better. Karaoke machines.

Let's go!

You're listening to Forever Ago, part of the Brains On Unit. I'm your host, Joy Dolo, and my co-host today is Freya from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Hi Freya.

Hi Joy!

So today we're gonna learn all about how America got its national anthem, the Star Spangled Banner. So Freya, do you know that song pretty well? Have you ever tried singing it?

No, I don't think I have. Oh.

Oh shall we try?

Sure.

Oh

Probably like a twins game because when we go to those they always sing it.

Yeah, I feel like at a lot of sports events, the twin games or even sometimes at school, yeah. Like you'll still start with the Star Spangled Banner and do it. If you had a personal anthem, what song would it be?

I think don't stop me now.

Yeah. That's a great song. That's one of my favorite songs. Don't stop me now.

If you wanna have a good time.

That's a great song. I think if I had a personal anthem, it would change every day. But I think mine today would be that. Do you remember that song? Cause I'm happy. I think that'd be my anthem today because I've had so much coffee. And because I've had so much coffee, I'm so excited to go to the annual anthem convention. The timing is remarkably perfect.

Yes, it is. And here we are. AnthemCon.

Wow, this place is huge.

Gotta have room for all the anthems.

all the anthems? I thought there was just one national anthem.

No way, pretty much every country on Earth has a unique anthem. But get this, it took over a hundred years for the US to pick its anthem. It wasn't chosen until nineteen thirty one.

Wait, what? Why did it take so long?

Great question. It's a wild story with lots of song contests and lots of songs that were good, but not good enough.

Gotcha. Makes sense. It took a while. Anthems are important. There are songs that help bring groups together, and they're not just for countries. My school had one. This is the fastest version of my school song. Okay. Fridley High will shine tonight. Our team will win this game, ever true and ever loyal. Rahra rah. And I don't know all the words. So bold T I G E R S Zero Five. That's when I graduated. Did you n did you like my school song? Ha ha ha.

There are also anthems for sports teams, queer anthems, feminist anthems, and patriotic ones. Just to name a few.

So how did the Star Spangled Banner become the national anthem for the US?

Let's talk to the anthems themselves to find out.

The French national anthem. They were the first official national anthem adopted by any country.

I'm number one. I'm number one. I mean before me there were royal anthems for kings and queens.

There still are.

But maybe you've heard of a little thing called the French Revolution?

Indeed I have. The French Revolution was a time in the late 1700s where the people of France were fed up with how unfair French society was. They blamed it on their corrupt royal rulers.

O we Well, the French national anthem, which is moi, started as a rallying cry that eventually became the official national anthem.

Le jour de Cloiret

Catchy!

I'll say, look around. Now almost all the countries have them. I started that. How do you say transetter in English?

Trendsetter is English.

Well closed.

Call me Terencetter.

Okay, bye trendsetter. So where's the Star Spangled Banner? I can't wait to meet them.

I'm sorry, did you say you're looking for me, Yankee Doodle?

Uh no, I'm sorry.

Or me, the song known wide and far as Hail Columbia?

No, I mean

No one even knows who you are, Columbia. Oh.

Oh I'm sorry, yes, much better to be like you known as a children's song that originated as a way for British people to make fun of people from the US.

I can't hear you.

I'm not Yankee Doodle went to town riding on a pony, stuck a feather in his cap, and called it Macaroni.

Yes, I love that song. Is that you?

Guilty as charged, ma'am.

Why are you here at the Anthem Camp? And sorry to you, Hail Columbia, but I have no idea who you are. Well

I never I go like this.

He

I'm so sorry, Hail Columbia. She meant no offense. Joy, this is a song called Hail Columbia.

Joy, it is a joy to make your acquaintance.

Enchante. Is that...

What French you're speaking? Aw man, did that French anthem get to you first?

And this song is Yankee Doodle.

अपताप जोई

Yeah.

Yankee and Columbia here were two of the biggest anthems in the early days of the United States.

Thank you, Freya.

Oh, you mean before the Star Spangled Banner became the official anthem?

All right.

I'm the Star Spangled Banner and I'm Zoo important and everyone knows me.

Oops, sorry, sore subject.

Very Yes.

But we were anthems, but never the official anthem.

Oh, some people thought we should have been the anthem. Let us tell the tale.

People traveled by horse or train. There were no telephones or computers.

Telegrams were the fastest way to send messages. That's where messages were sent using Morse code. It sounded like this.

Oh yeah, and then the telegram office would decode those dots into a message, write it out, and deliver it.

So much faster than carrying a handwritten letter across many miles, though people still sent those too.

And of course the Civil War had just begun.

Oh yes, that was a war here in America between the northern states and southern states over whether slavery should be legal.

You are quite the scholar, Ms. Dolo, and at that time the United States had no official national anthem.

The Civil War was a scary time. Almost everyone knew someone fighting as a soldier.

People wanted to unite and they wanted a song to help them do that.

A group of fancy men in New York City formed a committee to pick an official national anthem.

I thought to myself, this is my moment. Hail Columbia, you shall rally the people.

But no.

The committee immediately dismissed me an already very popular anthem as pretentious.

Yeah.

Pretentious is another word for stuck up, and they said no. I was childish.

Stick a feather in his cap like this? I don't know

So, did they pick the Star Spangled Banner then?

Well the Star Spangled Banner was already a popular song back in those days, but they didn't pick that either.

What? Plot twist?

Yes.

Ha ha ha.

They eliminated the star spangled banner, saying it was so hard to sing that it was quote almost useless.

Almost useless. Cracks me up every time.

It is rather amusing. So the committee asked the public for help holding a new contest to find a song that would be both patriotic and pull at the heartstrings.

Within six weeks of announcing the contest, the committee received over 1,200 submissions.

That's a lot of anthems to listen to.

Indeed. It took about a month and a half for the committee to listen to all of the entries, and after all that listening

They finally selected a winner?

Actually, they selected

Zip.

NOTHING!

What? You mean to tell me out of 1,200 submissions, the committee couldn't find a single national anthem?

Pretty much. In fact, the committee barely thought any of the submissions were good, let alone good enough to be the official song of the country.

Some members of the committee even called the submissions quote rubbish, end quote.

That means they thought these songs were hot garbage.

Yikes. Well, sorry to both of you. I guess that's just how the cookie crumbles. Peace.

Hmm, let's go. I'm starving.

It was nice chatting with you, Hail Columbia and Yankee Doodle.

Catchy on the flip side. Freya, let's also take a break and play a round up.

So this is the game where we take three things from history and try to put them in order of which came first, second, and most recent in time. And today's three things are songs sung at sports games. We have We Will Rock You. Take me out to the ballgame and get ready for this. So do you know these songs? I know you know Queen.

Um, I know we will rock you and take me out to the ballgame.

Have you ever heard the get ready for that?

No.

Well, we'll just do our best guesses then. Okay. So which do you think came first, which came second, and which came most recently in history?

Um I think Since I've never heard um get ready for this, I think that one came first. Take me out to the ballgame came second and We Will Rock You came last.

And Rocky came last. Okay, so get ready for this first. And that's because you're not really quite sure about that one. So it's probably from like eighty two BC. And then the ball game. And then Rocky is the most recent. Is this your final answer?

Uh yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, all right. Well let's lock it in and we'll hear the answers at the end of the episode right after the credit.

So stick around.

Wanna send us something?

If you were inspired by an episode or learned something cool about history, share it with us. up your own personal anthem or want to share the latest slang word Or maybe you've drawn a picture of Billy. Whatever you think up, tell us about it by going to brain.

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You're listening to Forever Ago. I'm Freya.

And I'm Joy, and today we're talking about anthems. These are songs that have special importance for any group of people.

Which is really perfect because we're at the annual anthem convention where us humans can learn from actual anthems.

Before the break, we learned that the United States didn't have an official national anthem before 1931. There were many contenders like Hail Columbia and Yankee Doodle, who we met earlier.

But these anthems didn't make the cut. In fact, nobody could settle on one anthem at all.

But during the Civil War, the Star-Spangled Banner got pretty popular. It was written about 50 years before the Civil War, during another war, the War of 1812.

because it kind of was associated with this dramatic military victory that people could take pride in.

Oh it's Billy Coleman. I'm so glad you're here. Joy, this is Billy.

I'm the Associate Director of the Kinar Institute on Constitutional Democracy at the University of Missouri, and I research early American music and politics.

In the years after the Civil War, some people really wanted the Star Spangled Banner to be the official national anthem.

The fact is that a lot of the people that were campaigning for it to be a national anthem were militaristic in one way or another. So we're talking about groups like the daughters of the American Revolution, or we're talking about veterans groups like the American Legion.

So people who had been involved in wars wanted the Star Spangled Banner. Makes sense. The song is about fighting a war, after all.

But the song still wasn't chosen as the official anthem.

should be the national anthem.

The nineteen twenties is right after World War.

That involved a lot of countries around the world, including the U

Yeah, and after the sport.

And it's like incredibly hard to sing. So they push back against it.

For this reason, people who were against the Alcohol? Didn't like the song either.

Many of these groups thought I should be the anthem.

Whoa, another song? Pleased to meet you. Um, who are you?

Why, I'm America the beautiful, you know.

Oh beautiful.

Beautiful. For space. Yeah.

For air Majesty

Yeah.

Girls.

It really paints a lovely picture.

Right? I started as a poem by Catherine Lee Bates way back in 1893. Catherine was inspired by the stunning landscapes she encountered as she traveled across the United States. from the Great Plains in Kansas to gleaming cityscapes like Chicago.

So you were a contender for the national anthem, too?

Indeed. In 1927 there was yet another contest with a new committee of folks.

And this committee did agree on one thing they didn't want the anthem to be the star spangled banner.

And they agreed that Catherine's poem should be the words of the anthem. They just needed to figure out what melody to use. You see, at the time, that poem was set to a lot of different melodies, not just the melody we know and love today.

The judges were told don't pick a winning melody unless it was so good it would sweep people off their feet.

That's a high bar. So who won the contest?

We'll find out right after the mailbag.

I love checking the mail. Ooh, let's see what we got here.

I'm Nate. I'm from England, London, the U in the UK. And I think that what we hear before we

We'll

here the listener mail is Morse code and I think it spells forever ago actually spells that I think that's really really cool. Also, I really love the show and I am really excited for your new episode.

Well, Nate, you got me. It is Morse code. And it does spell forever ago. Pew pew. Y'all ready for this? Great detective work, Nate. Virtual high five. Hold your hand up. Is it up? Okay, let's high five the air together on three. One. Three. Great, virtual high five. You're very strong. You've been working out. If you have an idea, thought, or question for me, send it to the mailbag. Go to brainzon.org slash contact. Thanks!

You want this show with zero ad breaks? You can get it that way. Just join Smarty Pass. It supports me and all the work the team and I do. Plus, you get ad-free versions of Brains On, Smash Boom Best, and your favorite, obviously, forever ago. Sign up at smartypass.org.

Okay, we're back. I'm Joy.

And I'm Freya.

And we're learning about anthems. We just heard how in the 1920s a group of people held yet another contest to pick a national song.

They wanted these lyrics to be from the poem America the Beautiful, but they wanted a new melody.

And we are here with the song America the Beautiful right now.

Hello, said

So, America the Beautiful, tell us who won?

You wouldn't believe it. Nobody.

Again?

It was an absolute flop.

I thought I had trouble making decisions, gee.

Yeah.

For real. The people who didn't want the anthem to be the star spangled banner couldn't agree. But meanwhile, the people who did want the star spangled banner, they were very organized. Write historian Billy Coleman?

Groups like the Daughters of the American Revolution, veterans groups, they were just much more organized in support of like one particular song. And that kind of helped it officially get over the line.

That's right. Unified support for one heck of a song.

Oh here comes the big hot shot star spangled.

The Star Spangled Banner?

That's right, it's me, the Star Spangled Banner, the official United States national anthem.

We've been looking all over for you

Of course you were.

Some people think you're really hard to sing. I am some people.

I like to think it takes someone with rabbit. singing so high and then so low. Isn't it fun?

That's one way to put it.

What can I say? I'm a glass half full kind of anthem. Some might say I'm hard to say. I like to think I keep people on their toes. And who cares anyway? I won.

Well, you may be the official national anthem, but every year at the Super Bowl, they also sing America the Beautiful.

Lift every voice and sing. That song comes from the early 1900s and it is known as the

So when you hear these different songs, you can think, Which one resonates with me? Which one represents the country as I hope it can be?

And that's a really good way of being a citizen is to engage with that question over and over again. And I think that's sort of where the anthem can be at its best.

Thanks, Billy, and thanks Freya for bringing me to AnthemCon.

Freya, I'm so glad I found you. Yankee Doodle went to the mac and cheese food truck and now his hat is covered in macaroni. I need some help cleaning him up.

Let's go.

I'll be back for some vocal training soon, Starry. BRB

An anthem is a song that helps bring a group of people together. It is supposed to represent them.

Many countries have an official national anthem, and for the US it's the Star Spangled Banner.

It took over a hundred years for the country to pick that song and the People were against it at the time.

Spingled Banner was made the official anthem, beating out other popular songs like Yankee Doodle and American.

special bonus content, subscribe to our Smarty Pass.

Okay, Freya. It's time. Are you ready to hear the answers for first things first?

Okay.

Okay. Well just as a reminder, let's see. Your first one was get ready for this and then take me out to the ballgame and then we will rock you? Yes. Yes. Okay, let's see. Drum roll. But da da da da.

ダダダダダダダダダ

Okay. Well I'll tell you what, this was not an easy one. It was not easy. So the first one was actually Take Me Out to the Ball Game. Oh really? Yeah. And so that was written in nineteen oh eight. So that's right around when I was born. I'm only in my early twenties. Um, the original lyrics were not the ones we sing today. They actually focused on a baseball fan named Katie Casey.

Yeah.

Cool.

Um, I play softball.

Oh cool, cool. I used to play when I was your age too. Well, copies of the sheet music even featured a photograph of a suffragette, a famous woman who was leading the fight for women's right to vote. That is cool. I didn't know the history behind that song, but I've heard it before.

Yeah.

At ball games. Well, I'm eating a hot dog.

That's true.

It all goes together. And then second was from the band that you know very well, Queen, was We Will Rock You. And so that debuted in nineteen seventy seven and was designed as a song to have audience participation, which is what motivated the famous stomp, stomp clap rhythm that dun dun d Hãy subscribe cho kênh La La School Để không bỏ lỡ những video hấp dẫn

No.

Yeah, I don't either. You know what it is? It's lots of running and my knees hurt because I am old. So suckers in my in my past. So get ready for this came out in nineteen ninety-one and it's by Belgian and Dutch group two unlimited. I don't think I've actually heard of them before. But I do remember this song. Did you ever see the movie Space Jam?

No, I don't think I have.

Oh, that was from when I was younger too. But the song became a part of Jock Jams, which is a collection of exciting songs meant to pump you up, put together and released by the sports TV channel ESPN. And before you could easily make playlists on a music streamer, people needed to buy CDs in order to hear a bunch of different artists in one place. Have you seen a C D before?

Yeah. Yeah.

Do you have a C D?

I don't think we do. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Answers?

Yeah. I didn't know that take me out to the vault. That old.

Yeah, I didn't either. And it's also cool that how I was involved with like women's rights and I think that was pretty cool. Join us next week for an episode of

Thanks for watching.